Star Wars Legos

Part 1
[audio:http://www.scatteredrhymes.com/poets/ben%20mirov%201.mp3|bgcolor=0x000000]

Part 2
[audio:http://www.scatteredrhymes.com/poets/ben%20mirov%202.mp3|bgcolor=0x000000]

Monkey Heart

Pick it up.
Consider it a machine.
Put it down.
Remember you need it.
Go back to where you left it.
Airport terminal, donut shop
seventh grade. Are you scared?
It’s ok. So am I.
Take a wet rag. Put it on your head.
Let’s retrace your steps.
Do you love your wife?
Is she made of dolphins?
I love my fucking life.
Even my secrets
and the terrible things I’ve done.
They’re like small smooth stones
in a green plastic bottle
with no label. What were we doing?
Driving down a long dark street?
Does it feel exactly right?
Little fist that pumps the blood.
The flicker in your empty.

—

WAVE MACHINE

We go out for drinks and attack a dumpster. D takes off his pants and tries to have sex with J. My lighter is busted. I run to catch the 22. “The next step is to think like Brian.” D escapes through the kitchen. I forget to lock up the knives. Her drawer is full of strawberry condoms. I look for the green bunny poem. She drops me down the building’s side. It’s sober day. Thanks for coming to the show. There is no origin. Your emails wince. I wish they were something else, not alone. J calls me shitface with tears in his eyes. We meet at 8 and grab a bite to eat. Someone says my name is Booth. She gives me my third drink for free. Z laughs whenever a kid starts a fight. There isn’t enough sex to go around. “I can’t believe they killed-off Bodie.” I manage to see three shows a week. I’ve decided to stop sleeping you. It’s a bag of baseball bats I hand the kids. Most of the day is spent on the floor. I never open the envelope marked C. I walk down Valencia over a grate.

—

When Time and Space Collapse Return This Poem to its Source

Do you ever think about love?
I believe love is Michael Burkard.
There are many disturbing facts

about the nature of reality. Burkard
takes the L to Lorimer St. and transfers
to the G. He is meeting friends for dinner.

All matter is just empty space revolving
around a pinhead of energy growing
more and more tired each moment.

Sadness is a kind of purity that Michael
Burkard uses to drain the darkness
from his fingertips. When droplets of rain

fall from the branches into the water
below it creates concentric ripples moving
outward into everything and cannot be stopped.

Michael Burkard is thinking about this poem
he won’t write until seventeen hours
in the future, while he sits alone in his apartment

feeling like a ghost. Purple light passes
through curtain after curtain until it reaches
the retina and escapes. Michael Burkard

is eating spaghetti with friends. He is rewriting
a line of poetry again and again in his head.
He is writing the Selected Poems of Michael Burkard.

—
POSTSCRIPT
Links to things mentioned in the interview; they will all open in a new tab so you can indiscriminately click without interrupting the show: